Chris Evans Agrees With Quentin Tarantino's Comments That Marvel Actors "Are Not Movie Stars"

Last year, Quentin Tarantino said some things about Marvel and the actors who play the superhero characters in their films. He talked about how he doesn’t believe that there are any movie stars anymore due to the "Marvel-ization of Hollywood." He said that the actors who star in these Marvel movies are not movie stars:

"You have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters. But they're not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I'm not the first person to say that. I think that's been said a zillion times…but it's like, you know, it's these franchise characters that become a star."

Well, it turns out that Captain America star Chris Evans actually agrees with him. During a recent interview with GQ magazine, the actor said:

“That was the beauty of working on Marvel films. You never really had to be front and center. Even in your own films sometimes. Quentin Tarantino said it recently and I was like, you know, he’s right. The character is the star. You’re there, but you don’t feel the burden of it.”

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige doesn't quite see things the same way as Evans because he said: “I think it’s something [Chris] was telling himself, and I think it’s something many of the Avengers, including Robert, would tell themselves, which actually was very helpful to the process. But in certain cases, including Chris’, it’s not entirely true.”

Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. previously responded to Tarantino’s comments saying: "I think our opinions on these matters say a lot about us. I think that we are in a time and place that I unwittingly contributed to, where IP has taken precedence over principle and personality. But it's a double-edged sword. A piece of IP is only as good as the human talent you get to represent it, and you can have some great IP even if it's coming from an auteur or a national treasure of a writer-director, and if you don't have the right kind of artist playing that role, you'll never know how good it could have been. I think that creatively it is a waste of time to be at war with ourselves. I think this is a time when everything is so much more fragmented now that I think you have this kind of bifurcation. Throwing stones one way or another … and I've had my reactions in the past when people said things that I felt were discrediting my integrity … I go, "You know what? Let's just get over it. We're all a community. There's enough room for everything," and thank God for Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water. That's all I have to say. We need the big stuff to make room for films like Armageddon Time."

Then there’s Nick Fury star Samuel L. Jackson, who has worked a lot with Tarantino of the years, who said: "It takes an actor to be those particular characters, and the sign of movie stardom has always been, what, asses in seats. What are we talking about? That's not a big controversy for me to know that apparently, these actors are movie stars. Chadwick Boseman is Black Panther. You can't refute that, and he's a movie star."

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings actor Simu Liu also spoke out against these comments on Twitter, saying: "If the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie. I am in awe of their filmmaking genius. They are transcendent auteurs. But they don't get to point their nose at me or anyone."

So, as you can see, there’s been a lot of different opinions on the matter and it seems like Evans has the most humble outlook on things.

What do you think about what Tarantino had to say here about Marvel? The filmmaker previously said that he would not direct a Marvel movie because he’s not a hired hand. But if he did make a movie, it would be Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.